Chapter 29: The Tower Part Five
(A/N: Happy New Years y'all, let's hope this one is better than the previous one. I'll be going back to work as usual soon so that'll be fun… Anyway, let's get right into the action, hope you enjoy some Red and Blue action)
Blue
Blasty shot off into the air with both of his cannons pointing a straight 180 degrees downward.
The overseer dropped the tablet that they were using to monitor our progress and her mouth was agape.
"How can a pokemon that big do that?"
It seems like the overseer forgot their professionalism for a moment as they just pointed and stared in awe.
Well… I guess this means that this was not the intended way to finish this.
I'm not sure if I should have felt happy or worried about this but since Blasty was still in motion I didn't have much time to ponder the minor things.
When Blasty reached the planned height, I ordered him to use a concentrated hydro pump at the angle where the pedestal that held the keystone and Blastoisinite, would be.
With pinpoint precision honed from the nine trials beforehand, Blasty managed to knock both of them in a clean shot that actually ended up knocking the pedestal down as well.
All three objects fell into the pool below and I had Blasty right himself as he slowly hovered down like a certain Italian plumber's FLUDD.
I directed Blasty to where the mega objects were and then had him come back to his original trial location.
He handed me the keystone while I put on the Blastoisnite for him (it was on a cute little necklace that suited Blasty very well).
The overseer was still too shook to say anything, which was good news, at the very least it meant that what I was trying here wasn't against the rules.
I tried on the keystone ring and to my pleasant surprise it fit perfectly as if it was made for me.
Perhaps they tailored it for me when they heard I was taking the trial. How prudent of them to expect me to pass the trial.
Not that I blame them.
I felt the bond between me and Blasty through the ring and tapped it as I had seen Sapphire done in the past with her Blaziken.
Blasty became enveloped in a light that was similar to the mega iconography that I had seen while ascending the tower.
When the evolution process had finished, Blasty had one huge cannon above his head and two smaller ones adorning his arms.
Damn mega Blasty looks so cool, was the first thought I had.
Luckily for me, mega Blastoise seemed to have the power boost I was looking for when we made this gambit.
That giant cannon on his back looked to be almost twice the circumference of his previous cannons.
Let's hope this directly translated to his firepower…
Since the goal was to break the targets in quick succession, I started making calculations to have Blasty hit them simultaneously.
Now that he had three cannons this should be doable.
I told Blasty that we were going to try to finish this in one round.
He nodded in a confident grunt that sounded a bit more powerful than his normal one but otherwise was the familiar Blasty sound (which I was glad to see since it'd be a shame if he changed too much from mega evolution).
On my mark, I had Blasty hit the accursed middle target with hydro cannon while targeting the other two weaker targets with hydro pumps.
An attack with much more pressure than the previous ones burst forward from Blasty's main cannon.
The middle target shattered into many pieces as it was clearly not built to handle an attack of this magnitude, the other two targets broke in a familiar manner as the previous trials.
The bits of the middle target fell to the bottom of a pool and then a bell rung in the arena.
The overseer shook off her shock and approached me and Blasty to commend us on our victory.
"Normally, the pedestal is supposed to come down after you clear the trial and that would be your reward, but … clearly the pedestal is not in a state to complete that role." She said as she glanced at the shattered bits of pedestal scattered in the pool under the waterfall.
I looked at Blasty, who was now back to his original form, and he shook his head and pointed back at me.
"Fine fine… it's my fault Blasty." I whispered to him and then sheepishly looked to the overseer, "my bad" I admitted.
"That's definitely alright, I was definitely impressed by how you completed the challenge and you didn't break any rules so don't worry about it. I would say you more than accomplished the goal of showing your bonds with your pokemon."
I was relieved to hear that we had made it past the final hurdle without any administrative issues.
Believe it or not, I definitely had my fair share of run-ins with … rules … in the past so I wouldn't have been surprised if that gambit just now broke some kind of sacred rule or something.
Then a thought occurred to me and I asked the overseer, "Wait how was this last trial supposed to be cleared in the first place?"
"Well… the final target is made out of a special composite material that is especially resistant to water moves. Normally, one would just break the target by freezing it and then shattering the now brittle target or hitting it with a different type move like aura sphere. Still, your method was much more interesting, if not a bit unorthodox." The overseer seemed to praise me with genuine respect for Blasty and I's plan.
Personally, I felt kind of embarrassed that we didn't try out Blasty's other moves before going for the crazy plan. Oh well, at the end of the day we completed the trial in a way that showed our bonds so I think I can be pretty happy with how it turned out.
I said my thanks to the overseer for helping administer the test and started to descend the stairs to the starting point at the base of the tower.
As I was heading down, I finally had the luxury to relax and a bit and I started wondering whether I was going to be the first one to complete my trial.
I mean I should be the first one, all things considered, we didn't have to restart the trial at all and clearly me and Blasty are the best duo…
Back to the beginning, Red's POV
Both Blue and Platina were sent off to opposite sides of the tower and I idly thought, well there's no other set of stairs. I wonder where they expect me to go?
As if reading my mind, the overseer who stayed behind motioned for me to follow her to a large Lucario statue in the center of the room.
Before I could ask where we were going to go for my trial, the overseer pressed on the paw of the Lucario statue and suddenly a slight rumbling could be felt.
The ground opened up and a secret stairway was revealed.
Two thoughts came to mind as I witnessed this intricate mechanism.
One, cool.
Two, why does anyone build a tower this big and then have a room underground too?
As we descended down the stairwell, I could see the mega evolution icon etched into the walls and they seemed to be the light source as well.
This created an interesting atmosphere as I walked down the rainbow colored stairwell.
We stopped before a room (that wasn't at the bottom somehow) and the overseer opened the door.
I walked in to see … not a room, but a massive chamber that looked more fitting for the term "colosseum".
"Am I going to be a gladiator or something?" I joked to the overseer.
To my surprise, she had a fairly serious expression as she answered "That's essentially what this challenge is."
She continued explaining the trial in detail "You and Venusaur will have to face off against a gauntlet of trainers until you have defeated them all, the trial's special characteristic is simple. You cannot tell what moves Venusaur will use, you can only use simple commands like attack, defend, or dodge. Anything to do with specific move names is forbidden and will result in an automatic trial failure."
I thought about it for a bit, I guess it would be hard to avoid the instincts to yell out certain move names, but didn't this trial feel fairly simple?
I was wondering if the trial makers were underestimating how strong Saur and I were, but since the goal of this challenge was to obtain the mega stones so we could properly face Team Neo, I wasn't about to complain about a simple challenge.
The overseer seemed to read my expression and she gave a mysterious smile as she said "Rest assured br- Champion, this won't be as easy a challenge as you expect."
She seemed to have caught herself saying something else but I couldn't really make it out so I just focused on the task at hand.
I sent Saur out and explained to him what the challenge was like and he nodded as he quickly readied himself.
The first trainer walked into the arena and sent out a Delphox.
He looked particularly confident that he would win the battle but Saur and I definitely had a thing or two for him.
The battle began with a rapid mystical fire attack and, to the overseer's surprise, I said nothing and just watched it.
Saur knew what I wanted and just swatted the fire aside with his vines.
The other trainer could not believe what he just saw.
I don't particularly blame him, Saur had been trained through encounters with countless trainers and powerful (including legendary) pokemon.
His vines were already thicker than the average Venusaur, and that wasn't even getting started on how resilient they were against fire.
Trusting that Saur would finish it off, I just sat back and watched as Venusaur proceeded to grab Delphox in the same motion as the block he had just made, and then whacked Delphox into submission.
Battle 1 of the trial had ended in about one and a half moves and the other trainer had no idea what to make of it.
The second battle involved a Charizard, who theoretically was even better suited to the Venusaur matchup.
Clearly this trainer had not seen my matches with Green back in Kanto.
Charizard led with a flamethrower, which Saur took head on and the result was a small explosion full of black smoke as the impact of the attack kicked up dust. .
It scored some moderate damage and this confused the opposing trainer as he wasn't sure why it was so easy to get a hit in.
Was the previous trainer just exaggerating about how strong Red's Venusaur was?
Then, I made my first command of the trial, I yelled out "NOW!" Suddenly, the ground rumbled behind Charizard, and two vines wrapped around Charizard all the way up to his waist.
The Frenzy Plant attack that Saur had hidden beneath the ground had completely surprised and suppressed Charizard thanks to the cover from the smoke.
The vines were so powerful that they broke up the ground that they had woven under originally, so that all of the ground between Saur and Charizard was full of rubble.
This terrifying feat of strength
Saur finished Charizard off with a direct hit from his double edge attack and we won our second challenge.
After Saur was healed, up the next stage of the trial continued.
This time, two trainers dressed differently from the previous ones
Ah a 2v2 huh, that's odd for a trial for Venusaur and I started looking towards Pika as my choice when the overseer suddenly intervened.
"Oh, that will not be necessary, this next stage will require you to take two opponents at once." They said in a matter-of-fact manner.
Well… that's fine I guess, the first two battles weren't much of a struggle anyway.
This time, our opponents were an Avalugg and Torkoal.
Looks like an endurance test this time, maybe they're trying to test out Saur's endurance instead of his explosive power with this one.
I've always felt more calm in the battlefield than in other areas and having a nice battle oriented challenge was right up my alley.
Especially recently, I feel like while having the girls on my team has been reassuring in the pokemon battling aspect, but sometimes I get the gut feeling that I am fighting a much harder battle than a pokemon one.
Anyway, for this battle, Saur tried to attack them with his vines a few times and then a razor leaf attack for good measure.
It did not seem to phase them very much and they fired back with their own respective overheat and avalanche attacks.
Luckily, the idea I had for Saur was not related to one of his official moves.
"Saur, Rocks!"
Saur thought for a second and realized what I wanted him to do.
He started grabbing the rubble that he had whipped up with the Frenzy Plant attack from before and raining them down on the two slow pokemon adversaries.
The pelting was relentless and the force at which Saur was flinging those rocks was much stronger than a typical Rock Slide attack.
Avalugg and Torkoal were soon overwhelmed and Saur was the victor of this 2v1 battle.
I heard a "tsk" sound from the overseer behind me which was probably pretty unprofessional of them, but I don't blame them. It would be hard for anyone to expect a Venusaur to clear three rounds of the challenge in less than three minutes.
As I was preparing myself for the next battle, the overseer suddenly alerted me that the next challenge would be a 1 vs. 3.
1 vs. 3? I had never heard of a battle format that lopsided but I guess this is what makes this a challenge. I rubbed my hands in anticipation and three opponents, dressed in a similar manner to the previous tanky pokemon duo's trainers, entered the arena.
This, marked the beginning of my real trial.
(A/N: Hope y'all are doing well this year, maybe we'll be able to return to normalcy by June if vaccine distribution goes well. I don't have much more to say for now but I am looking forward to the new season of anime, lots of great sequel series out there. See y'all in the next chapter!)